Looking for a scripting language

[Christopher Browne]

The world rejoiced as "deckerben" <deckerben at freenet.de> wrote:
> Greetings.
>
> I am just asking for someone's opinion. I want to pick a scripting language.
>
> I have decided that the black-and-white approach of 'just know C and Java'
> may not be sufficient. I ahve several windows scripts (batch files) that I
> would like to re-write in the language of a single interpreter.
> As part of my experimentation, I ported the Python source (2.5 and 2.0.1) to
> DOS using DJGPP.
>
> First, I need to re-write some PC batchfiles that do just about everything
> (string manipulation, computation, sub-process calling, system
> variable-setting, etc.) in the single scripting language of just one
> interpreter. That is, I want to illiminate the need to call an outside
> executable to handle a certian task as much as possible (to increase speed).
> But the interpreter needs to be as flexible as a shell prompt in its ability
> to handle command-line arguments, file I/O, and extern-executable calls.
>
> BTW: Can Python temporarily 'shell' to an external executable?
>
> I am currently considering: PERL, JAVASCRIPT, PYTHON and LISP.
>
> Which would work the best?

Javascript would be a pretty silly choice, of the bunch.  Its main
purpose is for popping up irritating screens on web browsers.

If you're competent in your use of them, _any_ of the others ought to
work fine.  All of them should be quite capable of satisfying the
requirements you describe.  (I'm assuming that by "LISP" you mean
"Common Lisp;" if that be the case, you probably want to use the CLISP
implementation...)

> Which one of these languages has the greatest demand for programmers
> at the moment?

There are probably more paying jobs associated with Perl than with any
of the others; Common Lisp is probably the obscure one of the bunch.

> Is there another language I should consider?

Your list should also include Ruby, and it's probably also worth
taking a _quick_ look at REXX which is more mature than any of the
other options out there.  (I first ran into REXX back before Perl
existed as a language; it was vastly preferable to EXEC2, which was
the typical alternative...)
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